


An Awful Good Girl

by rbcch



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: 1 use of Grey’s Anatomy reference, 2 uses of One Direction references, 7 uses of Alice in Wonderland references, Also Pearl has a lot of revelations and bodily reactions, Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, And the song has nothing to do with this basically, Angst, Don’t worry, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Just two fools fucking their pain away and falling for each other in the process, M/M, Not All of It Explicit Tho, Oral Sex, Shitload of Smut, Smut, They literally just fuck and keep having the same three conversations in rounds, bottom Violet, handjobs, holiday fic, top Pearl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-11 14:13:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12936984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rbcch/pseuds/rbcch
Summary: Matt lifts his gaze and cocks his head slightly, trying to pin her down, figure her out. She looks like she belongs in another era, a different timeline, an alternate universe. A life where Matt wears three-piece suits and doesn’t drink to forget and isn’t scared shitless all the time. A life where Matt meets a girl like her and takes her on an appropriate amount of dates before popping the question and takes her up to meet his parents and spends every Christmas spoiling her with ’54 convertibles and yachts and Tiffany boxes. A life where he isn’t an outcast, and she isn’t a misfit, a life that isn’t real even if they pretend that it is for tonight.“Matt Lent,” he says finally.“Violet Chachki,” she introduces herself, offering him her hand.Or, Matt spends his Christmas Eve getting drunk. Violet spends hers performing for a nearly empty bar. They meet.In which they are two broken parts that find themselves fitting into each other’s hollow spaces.





	An Awful Good Girl

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a cute little story full of Christmas feels and fluff. Instead I ended up with this angsty mess of 13K words. Am I surprised? Can’t say that I am. Do I regret this? Yes, probably. Would I do this again? Absolutely.
> 
> This is my little Christmas treat and thank you to every single one of you who have taken time to read my stories so far. Your comments, kudos, love, and continuous support have meant the world to me, and I am truly honoured to have been given an opportunity to share these words and characters with you all.
> 
> Tw - people spending their holidays alone, angst, a brief mention of suicidal thoughts. Please if you’re in any way triggered by the theme of being lonely during the holidays, this isn’t something you should read.
> 
> She/her for Vi who is genderfluid and does drag, he/him/Matt for Pearl who doesn’t do drag in this ‘verse.
> 
> Whoever guesses what perfume I’m describing gets a prize.

A dusty Brooklyn bar was never a place Matt imagined finding himself in, but then again, he supposes he’s old enough to recognise that life has an ironic tendency of leading people right where they swore they’d never end up in. It’s not at all a nasty place. On the contrary, it’s one of those cosy ones with dark brown and burgundy interior, soft armchairs for a seating, bookshelves lining all the walls, and the smell of books, wood, and hard liquor lingering in the air. Frank Sinatra is murmuring about being home for Christmas if only in his dreams in the background, and someone of the staff has bothered to try and decorate the place, bless their heart. A pine garland with little plastic ornaments circles the bar, and the mirrors behind the counter each have a tacky overdecorated wreath hanging on them. There’s even a little Christmas tree with twinkling lights and a top star that looks like it was golden maybe two decades ago in one of the corners, and Matt is quite sure he saw a mistletoe hanging somewhere above him, but he doesn’t really care enough to pay attention or check. He twirls his drink in the glass, the rocks sliding into a dance against the bottom swiftly  and the golden liquid licking the sides but never spilling.

It doesn’t look like a place where people come to lose themselves, but the façade can sometimes be deceiving, and Matt knows better. It is exactly the place where people come to drink until they cannot recall whether they came here to forget or be forgotten. Matt is not quite sure if he’s here for the former or the latter himself, so maybe he’s succeeding.

The bar is nearly empty and quiet, safe for Sinatra’s unique baritone, but so is the rest of New York. It’s those only 36 hours a year when the city gets exceptionally silent, its streets like a ghost town of some black and white movie, before people get back from wherever they were spending their holidays, and the air is buzzing with noise and rush again. Matt finds it melancholically soothing, both the way his city calms down and the way it comes alive, providing him with a possibility to drown in a grey mass of faceless and nameless strangers going about with their lives all around him.

A handful of customers is scattered around the room, not really paying any attention to their fellow drinkers. Two hookers on barstools next to the window, their hair too big and their clothing too small for a weather like this, they probably came in to escape the cold and the lack of potential clients; few drunks zoned out at their tables, about to pass out or drown in their glasses for good; a gipsy sat at the far end of the counter, covered in layers and layers of fabric and with her drink slid aside to make room for her deck of cards. The bartender is a heavy, short man who looks like he couldn’t really give two shits about anything that goes on in a place like this on a day like this. All in all, it’s not a half bad company Matt has got. Definitely not the worst he could imagine. Not even the worst he’s been in.

He finishes his drink in one gulp, then traces his fingers on the flawed wood of the bar counter before ordering himself another bourbon on the rocks. It’s ridiculous in every imaginable way, really. He’s that guy now. A manly man who drinks bourbon instead of talking and goes around with furrowed  brow and  tensed shoulders like he’s got a secret and a collection of hearts he’s broken. It’s a joke, but what part of his life isn’t?

The bartender pours him another drink with a look that tells Matt there’s approximately three thousand things he’d  rather be doing right now than this. Matt raises his glass in a mockery of a salute just to be a prick and takes a sip. He hates the taste less than he did three sips ago, which is a good sign. He’s not exactly where he wants to be yet, but he’s definitely getting there.

The last notes of the song die out slowly, and the total silence covers the bar like a soft duvet. It’s so quiet for a moment that it feels almost  deafening. Matt gets a sudden urge to shift just to produce any sound to make sure he hasn’t actually gone deaf. And then, as suddenly as the silence fell, it’s over, and the air is filled with the music again. It sounds like one of those tacky-ass Christmas songs, probably rerecorded and exhausted by yet another star with no album to drop and despair to stay somehow relevant.

Matt sighs and takes another sip. And that is when he hears her for the first time.

_Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree for me_

_Been an awful good girl_

_Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight._

It’s not a record. It’s not some sad reality-tv-starlet-turned-singer-turned-actress-turned-nobody. It’s not tacky. Its nothing like Matt has ever heard before and he needs to see the source of this noise immediately. He has to consciously stop himself from snapping around. Instead he tilts his glass again and waits until she has asked for a light-blue ‘54 convertible before slowly spinning in his seat.

Right there, on a sad excuse of a stage that he didn’t even notice before this, stands the most  angelic person he’s ever laid his eyes on. She’s every form and definition of exquisite he can think of. Her hair is so light it looks almost silver in the dim bar lighting, and it falls onto her petite shoulders but not much past them, curling at the ends in effortless waves. Her skin is incredibly fair, almost milky,  and the contrast it creates with her scarlet strapless dress is stinging. Matt doesn’t quite know what captivates him more, her tiny  waist or her long legs that seem to last for decades, but he’s mesmerised nonetheless.

_Santa baby, I want a yacht, and really, that’s not a lot_

_Been an angel all year_

_Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight._

Her voice makes little hairs on Matt’s arms stand up. It sends stupid shivers down his spine. There’s something almost ethereal about it, about the way she more breathes the words into the microphone  in front of her than she actually sings them. It’s every bit as breathy as Marilyn Monroe singing for president, but there’s nothing fake or played up about this person. She’s teasing, but she’s not really doing it on purpose, it feels like. She’s not even doing anything, per se. It’s like her whole existence is a tease.

_Santa cutie, and fill my stocking with a duplex and checks_

_Sign your ‘x’ on the line_

_Santa cutie, so hurry down the chimney tonight._

It’s a much slower version of the song than Matt has heard in years. It’s nothing like those new versions with pumped up bass and complex rhythms and auto tuned vocals. He actually suspects the music itself is an original  1953 record, raw and in serious need of remastering, just the way he’s always found the music at its most intriguing. It suits her breathy voice, the whole thing melting into an inseparable entity like it was meant to be all along, and Matt thinks he could listen to her for hours and never grow tired of her soft murmur and the sharp intakes he can hear between the verses.

_Come and trim my Christmas tree_

_With some decorations bought at Tiffany_

_I really do believe in you_

_Let’s see if you believe in me._

She doesn’t move a lot, but she doesn’t have to. Her stage presence is overwhelming as it is, without any corks added, in all its simplicity and honesty. Matt doesn’t know what it is, can’t really pinpoint it, but she demands attention without _demanding_ it. She feels like a kind of person who fills the room with their light, draws people in by just being, makes them aware of her without making a fuss about herself. Matt thinks that had the room been filled with people, had she been somewhere else than the stage, he would have still found her and stared at her like she’s an enigma and he’s got a burning need to solve her.

_Santa baby, forgot to mention one little thing, a ring_

_I don’t mean on the phone_

_Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight._

The music fades away slowly and she gives her audience, which is virtually an empty bar, a little bow. One of the hookers turns around and mutters out an encouraging ‘ _Slay, sister_ ’, but that’s all she gets. No applause. No tips. No reactions whatsoever. Matt is transfixed, glued to his stool, staring at her. She smiles, unfazed by the situation, and he could swear she winks at him before turning around and walking off the stage, but then again, it could be the dim light in this bar that has been collecting dust for longer than anyone probably cares to remember, or it could be all the bourbon that’s starting to warm Matt’s insides nicely,

As soon as she’s gone, it’s like the spell she’s cast on Matt wears off, and he can move again. He turns back to face the bar and chunks the rest of his drink, only grimacing at the taste slightly. The bartender is right there, in the exact same spot he was stood when Matt turned around, like he’s completely unaware of the fact that there was an actual fucking angel performing in his bar mere seconds ago. Matt wants to ask him who she is. Matt wants to ask for her name. Matt wants to ask if there’s a way to find her. Matt wants to ask if he saw that, if she’s real, or if she’s a creation of his wild imagination and drunken state.

Instead he asks for another drink.

He’s almost through with it when she approaches him, putting her black purse on the counter and resting her hand on top of it while she studies him. Matt doesn’t really feel surprised, doesn’t turn his head to look at her, either, but in the very far corner of his vision he can still see her hopping on a barstool next to him effortlessly and crossing her legs in an elegant manner. Matt can smell her expensive perfume; the obvious but quickly fading top notes of ylang.ylang, bergamot, and amalfi lemon, the heavier middle notes of iris, jasmine, rose, and lily-of-the-valley, and, taking him the longest to find, the base notes of musk, sandalwood, oak moss, and vanilla.

“There’s something fundamentally wrong about a guy who spends his Christmas Eve drinking alone.”

Her speech is oceans away from her singing. It’s low and husky, not quite as feminine as her appearances would suggest, but there’s still that same pleasant softness present somewhere in the midst of it, and Matt still thinks he would give up a lifetime to listen to her for a day.

“That’s rich coming from a girl who spends hers singing for an empty bar.”

She lets out an uproarious laugh at that, a sound so delicious it makes Matt finally turn his head and look at her.  She rolls her neck, leaning her head back for a moment, then  straightens her pose and covers her mouth with her palm as if she just remembered it’s not ladylike to cackle openly and loudly. It makes Matt chuckle, the sight weirdly endearing in its absurdity. The girl leans over the counter, resting her palms on it, and motions to the bartender with her head. He nods at her, like they’ve done this before.

“And another one of whatever he’s having,” she adds.

The bartender pours her a tall cocktail glass of something red, Matt suspects it to be a Cosmopolitan, and replaces Matt’s empty one with a new bourbon.

“Thank you, Johnny,” she says with a smile.

Johnny looks at her like all he wants to do is slam her against the counter and have her right there and then, and Matt feels oddly protective of this beautiful stranger that he knows absolutely nothing about. He dislikes Johnny a whole lot more after that.

She raises her glass at him with a playful smirk before taking a sip.

“What are you doing?” Matt enquires.

“Now you’re not a guy who’s drinking alone anymore.”

Matt studies her face, finally close enough to make out all the details. She’s impeccable, painted better than anyone he’s ever seen before. Her brows arch sharply, framing her face in a provocative yet very fitting way. Her eye makeup is strong but simple, just black and white, and so precise it’s almost ridiculous. Her red lips match her trimmed nails and her beaded dress perfectly, her cupid’s bow reminding Matt of a heart shape. She’s not wearing any jewellery safe for plain silver earrings, the dress a statement piece on its own. Her skin looks so flawless and soft, and it’s incredibly fair, except for few tattoos scattered on her arms, black ink standing out clearly against the porcelain canvas. Matt is not a sappy guy, just one who appreciates a beautiful thing when he sees one, and she might well be the most aesthetically pleasing sight he’s ever encountered.

“That does, however, make you a girl who’s drinking with a stranger.”

She puts her glass down and leans closer to him. For a  split second Matt thinks she’s going to kiss him, and he can feel his blood pulsing in his temples, but she  dodges his face just before their lips meet and aims for his ear instead.

“You know,” she whispers, voice still so so low and lovely, “I’ve heard there’s a way to fix that.”

She leans back, away from him, and Matt  lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding up until now. She lifts her drink again, and he has to look away, so he considers his own liquor, tracing his fingers on the rim of his glass.

“What for?” he asks after a pause. “Maybe I’m just a passer-by. A guy in a bar. Someone you won’t even remember a year from now. What’s the point?”

“Or, maybe, you are an affair to remember. You’ll never know unless you  give it a chance,” she says softly.

Matt lifts his gaze and cocks his head slightly, trying to pin her down, figure her out. She looks like she belongs in another era, a different timeline, an alternate universe. A life where Matt wears three-piece suits and doesn’t drink to forget and isn’t scared shitless all the time. A life where Matt meets a girl like her and takes her on an appropriate amount of dates before popping the question and takes her up to meet his parents and spends every Christmas spoiling her with ’54 convertibles and yachts and Tiffany boxes. A life where he isn’t an outcast, and she isn’t a misfit, a life that isn’t real even if they pretend that it is for tonight.

“Matt Lent,” he says finally.

She smiles at him, lips stretching and her features softening, and it looks so genuine that it makes Matt’s heart ache just a little.

“Violet Chachki,” she introduces herself, offering him her hand. “Enchantée, monsieur.”

Her name is as obscene as everything else about her is, so unreal and unbelievable that it’s almost impossible not to believe.

Matt doesn’t really know what to do with her hand, whether Violet wants him to shake it or kiss it, so he takes it and brings it closer to himself, brushing his lips against it lightly and maintaining the eye contact the whole time. “Enchanté, mademoiselle,” he says just to humour her.

Her hand stays in his for just a little while longer than necessary; Matt refuses to let go, and Violet doesn’t pull it back, but then the moment draws out for too long and it’s broken before either of them does anything, so they let go.

“So, Matthew,” Violet trails off.

“It’s Matt,” Matt corrects her.

“What are you doing here on this jolly night?”

“Are you joking?” Matt smirks. “The place serves the best eggnog in town.”

She laughs again, and the sound rummages through every vein in Matt’s body. His fingers itch with a sudden inexplicable desire to touch her, so he lifts his glass instead and studies the room through it, wondering whether he’s an Alice and whether she’s a rabbit hole or a looking glass, wondering whether he’ll end up falling, down her or through her or in some other way he’d rather not think of.

“Yet you’ve been drinking bourbon all night,” Violet says.

“Have you been watching me?”

“I saw something I like,” she says unapologetically. “Can you blame me for wanting to stay and stare for a while?”

“Um,” Matt says, because he doesn’t know what else to say, because her straightforwardness catches him off guard, because he wants to flirt back, but he’s five drinks in and she’s so beautiful and he doesn’t know what she could possibly want from him.

“Wait,” he says, pointing at her with his glass. “You’re not a hooker, are you? Because I don’t think I can afford you.”

She throws her head back in another gale of loud laughter, an absolutely obnoxious noise in such a quiet place and Matt loves loves loves hearing it.

“Why, yes, Matthew,”— _it’s Matt_ — “I’m afraid you’ve caught me. That’s exactly what I do to support my husband and my kid.”

“So there’s a husband and a kid? That sounds reckless,” Matt contemplates.

“Maybe that’s what I am. A reckless woman. A dangerous liaison,” Violet’s toying with the stem of her glass and Matt can’t stop staring at her delicate long fingers. “That scare you, Matthew?” ( _It’s Matt._ )

“Not as much as it excites me.”

Violet chuckles, clearly satisfied with his answer, and finishes her drink. Matt studies her as she uncrosses her legs and smooths out the skirt of her dress before hopping off the stool as elegantly as she hopped on it. She’s tall in her heels, probably taller than him, and he has to look up to meet her eyes. She presses her fingers on the foot of her now empty glass and slides it away from herself, then grabs her purse and pulls a banknote  big enough to pay for her drink as well as for all of Matt’s, out of it, and leaves it next to the glass.

“I’m no hooker,” she says, finally turning her attention back to Matt. “But I will be in the ladies’ in case you’ll feel like finding me, Matthew.” 

“It’s Matt,” Matt hums after her weakly before finishing the rest of his drink.

Looking back at it, Matt is not quite sure if it was her perfume, neroli turning into orris root slowly sliding into amber, or the alcohol in his system, or the fact that no matter how fucked up, no one _really_ wants to spend their Christmas Eve alone, but somehow he ends up in the ladies’, stood in front of Violet who is sitting on the countertop with her ridiculously long Bambi legs wrapped around him. Her fingers are running through his brown hair, making a mess out of it, and her other hand is planted on his neck, pulling him closer. He’s holding her waist, carefully as though afraid she’ll break under his touch, and their lips are colliding colliding colliding in a series of hungry kisses and muffled noises until they’re too breathless to keep going and too into it to stop.

“I really want to take you home tonight, Matthew,” she says against his lips, her voice thick and lower than before.

(((It’s Matt.)))

Matt lets go of her tiny waist and slides her skirt up a little, playing with the lacy edge of her stockings, just a light brush of fingertips against the skin through the thin fabric.

“Then do it, Violet,” he whispers. “Take me home tonight.”

“And if I do, will you have me your way?”

He hooks his fingers under the strap of her garter belt and stretches it before letting the elastic band snap back against her skin and moving his mouth from her lips to her ear.

“Is that what you want, huh, Violet? Want me to have you as I please? Want me to fuck you until you’re sobbing from how good it is?”

Violet closes her eyes and takes a sharp inhale. Matt can feel her body tense under his touch, her back curving slightly and her legs wrapping tighter around him. He almost misses the little nod she gives him, but in all its discreetness the movement is furious and determined.

“Then I will,” he breathes into her temple, and she whimpers at that, pulls away from him and finds his lips again, kisses him and tries to get him closer  like she needs him, until the front of his button-up is ruined in her fists and he’s forgotten what the world feels like without her pressed against him and invading his every sense.

Just as he thinks the only rational next move for him in this situation is to climb her right there, on that bathroom counter, she breaks the kiss and pushes him back until he’s at arm’s length and her palms are burning marks on the muscles of his chest.

Violet looks absolutely majestic and positively undone, her eyes wide and dark and her lips slick with Matt’s spit, a faint blush crawling up her chest and cheeks, her breath uneven and her legs still spread just enough for Matt to fit perfectly between them.

“Are you absolutely sure this is how you want to spend your Christmas Eve, Matthew?” she asks.

“It’s Matt. Yes,I want you,” he responds, and his own voice sounds kind of cracked and an octave higher than usual.

Violet tugs him closer by his shirt again and straightens him up, makes sure the hem of his shirt is tucked back into his pants from where it crawled up to reveal a trail of hair starting  at his navel and disappearing into his underwear, spends some time combing his hair with her fingers like those same fingers weren’t pulling on it just a second ago, wipes the ghost of her lipstick off his mouth,

“You go first,” she says when she’s happy with her handiwork. “I’ll count to sixty and follow you.”

It shouldn’t matter, not now, not there, in a nearly empty bar where no one cares if they leave together or stay separately, but the idea of a secret affair, of sneaking around like they’re up to something borderline wrong, of stolen moments in shadows seems to intrigue her, turn her on, so Matt lets her have it, rolls with it to tickle her fancy. He slides his palm down her side one last time before turning around and walking to the door.

“Wait,” Violet calls after him when he wraps his fingers around the door handle. Matt turns again, settles back against the door pressing down on the handle slightly and pulling it simultaneously to keep the door shut.

“You do realise I’m not a real girl, don’t you?” she asks him from where she’s still sitting on the countertop.

He smirks at her, “You do realise I’m not into real girls, right?”

A tiny smile plays on Violet’s lips, and she tries to hide it by biting her lower one.

“Not trade, huh?”

“Not trade.” No matter what Brian says about him.

It has started snowing again, and the snow  falls slowly in large fluffy flakes as they wait for a taxi on the abandoned Brooklyn street, Matt lights a cigarette and examines the way the snow forms sophisticated traceries on  Violet’s black fur coat before melting away and turning into droplets of water that shine every time they catch the street light whenever she shifts a little. The smoke he exhales is heavy and dark grey, and her breath is visible, too, but it’s that much lighter and purer than his,  and when he lifts his head to look at the black sky, he can see how the clouds they exhale intertwine and waltz together above their heads before dissolving into the cold night air. He tugs on her sleeve and motions with his head for her to look, and she nuzzles closer to him, snaking her arm around his and resting her head on his shoulder, adjusting her breath so that they’re in sync.

Matt spends the ride staring at the haze of lights as their driver speeds through the empty streets, and Violet spends it pressing her nails into the nape of his neck, lightly, just enough for him to feel her there, and neither of them says anything. She’s told the driver her address, but Matt didn’t really pay attention,  not until he realises they’re crossing the bridge.

“Where are you taking me?” he asks, turning to look at her.

“Upper East Side,” she says simply.

He narrows his eyes in yet another attempt to figure her out, like staring at her will somehow answer all his questions, but instead of explanations all he’s left with is more questions.

“Who are you, Violet?”

“Whoever you want me to be, Matthew.”

The way she says it, her voice hushed and soft, it would be really hot if their driver didn’t let out a mixture of choke and cackle at that. When Matt turns to look at him, his gaze is fixed on the road ahead, but he looks amused by his passengers and their exchange.

“It’s Matt,” he says, but that goes as ignored by her as the previous fifteen times he’s said that.

He smokes another cigarette when they exit the car in front of her tall building.

“Aren’t you too young for lung cancer?” she asks.

“Aren’t you too young to be this judgemental?” he asks  back.

She snorts and spins slowly around one of the poles of the portico on the outstretched arm, once, twice, three times, four, until he loses count and his head spins in rhythm with her and he feels lightheaded, maybe on nicotine or maybe on how lovely she is.

Her apartment door is decorated with a wreath, but it’s not one of those ready-made ones that anyone can buy at Target; it looks handmade and it’s absolutely gorgeous with its carefully placed golden ornaments. Whoever designed it clearly has an eye for the aesthetics.

“This is beautiful,” Matt says twisting one of the golden bells between his fingers while Violet looks through her purse for the key.

“Thanks,” she says without lifting her gaze. “Had some extra time on my hands.”

Violet leads him straight into the large living room, and Matt looks around while she kneels gracefully in front of the fireplace and busies herself with it. Her apartment is like that magic winter wonderland Matt spent so many years fighting to believe in up until he stopped fighting for anything and started fleeing. The tree in the corner next to the couch is real, and the scent of pine lingers in the air, light and pleasant and not at all too dominant. It’s lit up, the main source of light in the room, and its branches are heavy with ornaments, unsurprisingly expensive-looking, glass and porcelain rather than cheap mass-produced plastic, and clearly chosen particularly carefully with an exceptional attention to detail. She has Christmas lights in  jars on the glass coffee table, a thing one would see on all those artsy Pinterest photos, but somehow it works, somehow it’s not pretentious at all when Matt knows it’s hers. He spots elf dolls in between tomes and photo frames on her bookshelf, sitting with their tiny doll legs thrown over the edge of the shelf, and they make him smile stupidly. When he looks back at her, she’s standing next to the fireplace, her hand resting on the shelf above it, and Matt lets his gaze wander for another while, studies the wooden nutcracker stood next to her hand, then the lonely red stocking hung right above her.

“So no husband nor kid?” he says just loud enough to be heard over the cracking of the fire.

“No,” she says just as silently. “Maybe next year. Anything to drink? Red wine? Eggnog?”

“Wine will be fine, thank you.”

Violet walks to the bookshelf and bends over to fish a bottle of wine from the bottom shelf. Her skirt rolls up a bit, revealing the lace of her stockings, and the fabric clings to her body, showcasing her perfect bum. Were Matt a gentleman, he’d probably look away, but now he just finds himself enjoying the view shamelessly. She flips the bottles around, checking their etiquettes before settling on something that Matt is sure is very expensive and fancy and Bordeaux and would probably be more appreciated by someone with actual taste. Violet grabs two wine glasses and a bottle opener and moves to the coffee table, putting the glasses down and turning so that she’s facing the large window behind the couch and her back is to Matt. She’s firm in her movements as she opens the bottle and pours wine into one of the glasses, holding it up for Matt to collect. 

He moves for the first time since they’ve entered the room, comes so close that his chest is almost touching her back, and takes the beverage from her carefully. He sips it, the wine flamboyant and full on his tongue, while she pours herself a glass, too, and leaves his unfinished drink on the table when she’s done, pressing his lips on her shoulder instead. She twirls the crimson liquid around as he brushes her hair aside gently, leaving a trail of kisses up her skin and moving all the way to the back of her neck. He places his hands on her hipbones, pulls her closer so that their lower halves are pressed together, and drags his mouth up her neck, stopping to nibble behind her ear.

Violet abandons her barely touched wine on the table next to his before turning around to face him. She rests her elbows on his shoulders and pushes her fingers into his hair, then connects their lips in a kiss. There’s something insanely intimate about the way they’re doing this; his face between her arms, her leaning her upper body back slightly and him leaning forward to chase her lips, his hands  wrapped around her and his palms flat on her back to steady her and their crotches still attached. Violet’s lips are full and soft against Matt’s, and she’s flamboyant on his tongue, too, and when he sucks on her upper one, she keeps letting out the cutest little sighs that are instantly replaced by much sexier moans as soon as Matt changes tactics and nibbles her lower one instead. Matt thinks there’s a huge possibility he’ll need air at some point, but he also suspects he might never need it as much as he thinks he needs Violet right now.

She’s the one to pull away eventually, and he’s having none of it, tries to catch her lips again, but she tugs on his hair hard enough for him to freeze.

“I’m just,” she says, detaching herself from him and motioning to her face. “I’m just gonna remove all of this real quick.”

She attempts to circle him in order to leave the room, but he grabs her wrist and spins her back into his arms. There’s something almost celestial about the way she looks right now, illuminated by nothing but the Christmas tree lights and the lazy flames in her fireplace, glossy-eyed and her lips plump and glistening from all the kissing they’ve done, and Matt thinks this is the prettiest she’s looked tonight.

“Can I…” he feels his throat closing up, his words too thick to say aloud yet too heavy on the tip of his tongue not to say them at all. “Do you mind… Is it okay if I maybe, can I keep this illusion just for tonight?”

Violet looks at him contemplatively, and for a moment Matt is sure she’s going to call him a freak, ask him to leave, kick him out for being such a creep, but then her features soften and she chuckles.

“Why, of course, Matthew, if that’s what you want.”

 _It’s Matt_ , he mouths against her neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark and lifting her. Violet clings to him like a koala bear blessed with a set of limbs a deer would be jealous of, and gives him the directions to her bedroom between moans and hard pulls on his hair while he keeps sucking marks on her skin and blindly following her instructions.

Matt lets Violet land on her feet once they’ve reached her bedroom and looks around while she unbuttons his shirt, trailing hot kisses on his upper body as she exposes more skin with every button she undoes. The room, it feels like, is illuminated by thousands of fairy lights. There are fairy lights everywhere, literally everywhere. Circling the bedposts and littered across the headboard of the bed, framing the full-length mirror in the corner of the room, draping down the window like a stardust rain. It’s insanely beautiful, but it’s also just insane, absolutely insane, utterly and thoroughly crazy. She must be a crazy person. He’s gone home with a crazy person, and now the best case scenario is that she’ll be into some very kinky shit in bed, and the very worst that she’ll kill him after sex.

“Are you crazy?” he asks her. She’s done with his buttons and is kneeling in front of him, leaving red lipstick stains on his hipbone, and both he and his cock are suddenly very  aware of how close she, in fact, is.

“ _I’m afraid so. Completely bonkers. But let me tell you a secret; all the best people are,_ ”  she says against his lower stomach, breath hot and damp on his skin.

“Did you just quote _Alice in Wonderland_ to me?” Matt raises his eyebrow.

“Maybe,” she manages to say, which is quite an accomplishment seeing as she’s licking a stripe up his abdomen.

Matt lets out an unconvinced sound and she stops drawing circles on his skin with her tongue and gets up on her feet.

“Wait, you’re being serious, aren’t you?” she says. “What made you think I’m crazy?”

He flips her around and presses her against his bare chest, hooking his chin on her shoulder and pointing at all the fairy lights, “That’s an awful lot of fairy lights, Violet.”

She laughs and takes his outstretched hand, threading their fingers together and resting their hands on her stomach.

“I just find it comforting, y’know? There’s something so soothing about this time of year, when the days get shorter but the lights only get brighter as people put their Christmas lights up, and suddenly the darkness doesn’t feel so dark anymore.”

“You totally are,” Matt chuckles.

Violet turns her head to look at him, “I’m what?”

“Completely bonkers,” Matt says and locks their lips in a passionate, sloppy kiss. The angle is a bit awkward, but she’s kind of giggling against his lips and kind of still kissing him back just as heatedly and it’s just good and Matt doesn’t really want to stop, kind of wants to lay her down on the fairy light lit bed and kiss her until the dusk breaks into a new dawn, but she’s kind of stopped giggling and is now purring into their kisses instead, and there’s kind of a whole lot of more that Matt really, _really_ wants to do to her besides kissing.

Thus he breaks the kiss and brings his hands from where one of them is still resting on her stomach, fingers intertwined with hers, and the other palming her waist, to the small of her back where the lacing of her dress ends in a gorgeous bow. The silky ribbon is tied tightly, and for a passing moment Matt wonders who laced her like this, who had her bent over slightly, gripping the sides of her large mirror in order to support herself while they threaded the silk through the loops and tugged on it, hard, making her gasp and lose a tiny bit more breath with every loop on their way from the top down, wonders why they aren’t here with her now, undressing her instead of him, but the thought disappears as quickly as it emerged. He pulls on the ribbon, undoing the bow, and starts to loosen the corset built into Violet’s dress. It confuses him at first, pulling the ends of the string through the rings on the fabric, the left one until it’s on the right, then the right one that wasn’t on the left a moment ago so that it ends up on the left, and he thinks he’d have the ribbon tangled were silk capable of tangling — it’s not like he’s got all that much experience in undressing girls, she’s actually the very first one —  but he gets a hold of it fast enough and concentrates on nibbling Violet’s neck again while his fingers work the lacing. Her breath deepens with every loop he passes, and she’s letting out sighs that suggest this is quite pleasurable for her.

Violet sucks in a shaky, shattering breath that is as much desperate and frantic as it is relieved when Matt is finally done, like it’s her first proper gulp of air in a long time. He turns her around and grabs the back of her thighs to lift her again, lets the dress slide down her body and fall to the floor, and carries her to the bed, lays her on top of it on her back. She immediately draws her legs up and closer to her body, her knees pressed together primly. Matt taps on them and she slides them open, lets him fit between them without hesitation. He circles his fingers around one of her delicate ankles, and slides his other palm up her body, finishing at her neck. He wraps his fingers around it, not tight enough to choke her, but definitely tight enough for her to gasp audibly, and uses his thumb to force her chin up a bit before kissing her on the lips again. It’s slow-paced and unrushed, just lips moving against lips and tongues licking and exploring, and Violet tastes of vanilla with just a faint hint of lime.

When Matt pulls away, Violet lets out a needy sound and tries to follow him, tries to lift her upper body like his lips are magnetic and she’s never been this attracted to anything in her life before, but his hand is still on her neck, pinning her down, and he’s out of reach faster than she can react so she falls back onto bed, the gravity between them growing thinner but never fully breaking. He lifts his hand from her neck, puts it on her knee instead as he straightens his stance and studies her,  sprawled out beneath him, so ready and willing for him, reacting instinctively to his every touch and move, and it’s thrilling, and it’s arousing, and it goes straight to Matt’s cock.

She’s wearing a set of matching, silky emerald green lingerie, because in these three hours that Matts known her, the only completely clear thing about her has been that she doesn’t do things half-assed, goes all the way or doesn’t go at all, so of course she’d be  wearing Christmassy undergarments. Her strapless bra is plain safe for the stripy red and white bow between the cups. Matt traces his fingers on the edge of the garment, and she arches her back enough for him to reach and unhook the bra before discarding it on the floor. One of Violet’s nipples is pierced, and Matt can’t resist it, leans in and takes the ring between his teeth, tugs on it quite demandingly, and Violet is whimpering and arching her back even more into his touch. Her garter belt has matching but smaller bows on both ends of the front straps, and Matt undoes the garters first, then takes the belt off and lets it join the bra somewhere on the floor.

Matt removes her scarlet pumps, their red sole telling him more than enough about the amount of money she’s paid for them, and the way she angles her ankles to make it easier for him is oddly fascinating. Violet plants her left foot on Matt’s chest when he begins sliding her stocking off, pressing kisses on her inner thigh as he goes, and swiftly changes the legs when he’s done, so he does the exact same to her right one.

Her thong, decorated by another candy cane bow, does close to nothing to hide the semi she’s already sporting, and Matt can’t help it but drop on his knees and spread her legs more, placing his lips on her and mouthing her length through the fabric. She whines again and pushes her fingers into Matt’s hair, and he can feel her cock stiffen under his touch instantly, and it makes his own pants grow somewhat tighter, too. Matt draws his teeth gently down her shaft, then replaces them with his tongue, and Violet’s pulling his hair and panting, and the fabric of her panties is turning a darker shade of green where she’s leaking droplets of pre-cum, and god, Matt really wants to blow her, rip her underwear off and take all of her in his mouth, hollow his cheeks and suck and twirl his tongue until she’s a wreck, unable to remember her own name and unable to forget his, crying it out when she comes. God how he wants to do that to her, but he really _needs_ to fuck her more than he wants anything right now, so he gets back up and slides the panties down her legs (he’s pretty sure they’re about seven yards long) and sends them flying before taking her in.

Naked Violet is probably the single most breathtaking thing Matt has ever laid his eyes on. Her skin is incredibly flawless. Her neck is long and delicate, especially when she keeps leaning her head back like that, staring at him through her half-closed lids, but her Adam’s apple is prominent, and it messes with Matt’s head, makes him want to explore her even more. Her collar bones are visible, and Matt wants to leave a trail of bites on them, suck on them until the bruises and marks are all anyone will be able to see. He can see where her ribcage ends, her chest flat, her stomach small, her waist tiny even when there’s nothing tied around it. Her cock is hard and curving up beautifully now that there’s no fabric restraining it, and Matt just really enjoys looking at it, lets his gaze stay there for a little while longer. Her legs are smooth, not a single hair on them, and Matt kind of really likes the silky feel under his palms when he touches her skin.

Violet is definitely not a _real_ girl, but she’s not quite anything that Matt can define with certainty, and all he really knows is that she’s stunning, and extremely beautiful, and extraordinary in every single way, and he’s just very, _very_ attracted to her in this moment of time.

He hovers over her, leaning on his forearms astride her, and she tugs him in for a kiss. He chases that vanilla, tries to find the fading lime, and she’s pushing his shirt down his shoulders impatiently. Matt lifts one of his arms, tries to shake his sleeve away without breaking the contact with Violet, and her rushed tugging is more of distraction than it is actual help, but he still finds it cute how desperately she wants him out of his clothes.  Together they manage to lose the shirt and Matt throws it somewhere, not paying any attention to where it lands. In a meantime Violet’s fingers have found their way to the front of his pants where she’s already done with the belt and is unzipping and unbuttoning him. Matt kicks his shoes off, wraps his hand around Violets cock, the filthy noise she makes in  reaction to that muffled by his kiss, and pushes his pants down with his unoccupied hand.

Matt leaves his briefs on, and Violet rolls them over, straddles him and pushes his hand away from her cock, pins his wrists above his head with a surprisingly strong hold for such a dainty hand. She’s a right tease, kissing and biting down his chest and rocking her hips lazily into his, and he is so hard, and he wants to ravish her but also have her gently and slowly and in every possible position.

She stops somewhere between his ribs and sits up, lets go of his wrists and reaches for the bedside table, turning back to him shortly with a bottle of lube and a condom in her hands. Matt pops himself up on his elbows, and Violet points at him with the lube wordlessly, a question in her eyes. Matt tilts his head and shrugs a little in response. She points at herself in turn, and he quirks his eyebrow at her, teasing his lower lip between his teeth and managing a suggestive smirk. She rolls her eyes and scoffs, but it sounds amused rather than annoyed, and pokes the corner of his mouth with the condom. Matt takes it between his teeth, careful not to break the wrap while he does so, and she opens the bottle, pours some lube on her palm, and slicks her fingers with it.

Matt stays completely still, the condom still hanging from between his lips, fascinated by the show unfolding before his eyes. Violet lifts herself a little bit more, shifting her weight to her knees and placing her hand on Matt’s shoulder to steady her pose, her other hand finding its way to her hole. Violet parts her cheeks slightly, drags her nail around it before starting gradually pushing her finger inside.

She stops moving once she’s got the finger inside herself completely, and Matt is still, too, holding his breath and staring at her. Then Violet removes her hand from his shoulder and grabs her cock instead, stroking herself as she’s pulling her finger out and pushing it back in, and Matt has to close his eyes and concentrate on his breathing, because fuck if this vision isn’t too overbearing. When he finally opens his eyes to look at her again, she’s thrown her head back, much like she tends to do when she’s laughing, but this time it’s not amusement that’s causing this, it’s raw pleasure, and the muscles of Matt’s lower stomach tense.

It takes the total of three minutes, two fingers, and one unabashed moan from Violet before Matt is sitting up, wrapping his arm around her and spitting the condom out of his mouth somewhere on the bed. He finds her lips hungrily and blindly locates the lube, squeezes too much of it on his fingers, probably gets it everywhere else too, messing up both of them and her silk bed sheets, and nudges her arm out of his way, replacing her hand with his own.

He starts carefully, with one finger, and her muscles are relaxed enough for it to slid in easily, yet they feel tight around him, and he groans loudly just imagining what she’ll feel like around his cock. Violet shifts impatiently, curves her back and rolls her hips into his touch, so Matt doesn’t wait, adds another finger straight away and starts twisting them inside her. Violet hides her face in his shoulder, her own hand still pumping her cock, and Matt can feel her shallow breath on his skin. He feels her stretching around him, and she begins to slowly push her ass down to get him deeper inside her.  He moves his fingers more, starts a little scissoring motion, feels her open up around his fingers, so he goes for the third one, slides it in with more ease than previous two. He twists and snaps his wrist, pulls his fingers out and pushes them back in, twirls them around until she moans exceptionally loudly into his shoulder and sinks her teeth into the same spot right after. He repeats the move over and over, until the only solid thing in the world is Violet in his lap, and Violet around his fingers, and Violet biting his shoulder again and again.

Violet is the one to stop him this time around. She lifts herself off Matt’s fingers and climbs out of his lap, shoving him gently but firmly and reaching for the condom he so brusquely discarded not so long ago. He falls back on his elbows, and she tugs on the waistband of his underwear, so he lifts his ass and lets her undress him. Violet purrs shamelessly at the sight of his freed cock and makes a move toward it, but stops abruptly and shoots Matt a look, like she’s hesitating. He just glances at her in exasperation and she goes for it, grabs him tight, and he lets his eyes falls shut and leans his head back, unconsciously jerking his hips into her grip. Violet strokes him, draws her thumb over his tip, loosens and tightens her grasp just perfect, like she plans on ruining him, except he’s already there, already ruined by her and he isn’t even mad about it.

Matt bats his eyes open when Violet’s hand disappears from around him, ready to complain about it, but she’s ripping the condom wrapper open, and yeah, he thinks he can live with that. She looks adorably concentrated, her brow furrowed and her lips pouty as she rolls the condom on him, and Matt wasn’t aware he was capable of getting this turned on by someone performing this specific action on him, but apparently he’s still got some elements of surprise in him. Violet climbs back on top of him once she’s done, and Matt flops on the pillows as she presses her palms on his chest and searches for a comfortable position. His skin is burning, like he’s feverish, and her touch doesn’t help, but the silk of her sheets is cool and soothing beneath him.

Violet adjusts herself, lining her ass with Matt’s cock, and he reaches out his hand, tugs her hair behind her ear, and holds his hands out for her to support herself. Violet places her palms against his and starts sinking down on his length slowly.

It’s so arousing and good, the way she stretches around him and sinks lower and lower, that Matt feels lightheaded. He has to consciously fight the desire to buck his hips up to meet her slide, has to force himself to stay still and let Violet set the pace. He feels it clenching in the pit of his stomach with every inch of him that she takes, thinks she’ll push him over the edge by just being a tease and also feeling so damn tight around him, also suspects there’s no way this could possibly get any better yet it somehow does.

She starts moving straight away, sliding up and down on his cock with effortlessness only one Violet Chachki is capable of mastering, and Matt is immobilised for quite a while, just stares at her as she bites her lip and shuts her eyes, enjoys her riding him. The way she moves and rolls her hips is addictive, and right there and then, with nothing but thousands of fairy lights to witness their gasping, groaning, and panting, she’s undeniably both his sin and his redemption, and he’s never been anything like he is hers for that short moment.

It takes him a while, but he finds his muscles eventually, remembers how to use his body, so he begins to thrust his hips up in rhythm with her, meets her halfway, tries to somehow feel more of her even though it’s not physically possible as she’s already as close as she’ll ever get and he’s already as deep inside her as he’ll ever get.

She is, indeed, a rabbit hole, and with every thrust Matt stumbles down her more, and the fall makes him feel weightless and ties his gut into a tight knot of excitement.

Violet just keeps going, and it’s impressive, the way she’s not even breathless on top of him while Matt is completely wrecked  and out of breath, but at some point she leans closer to him, presses their foreheads together, and the rolling of her hips gets less rhythmical and slower, and that’s when Matt knows she’s tiring. He lets go of her hands and hooks his arms around her back, holds her close and manoeuvres them so that he’s on top of her and still inside her.

She settles back against the pillows and locks their lips in a kiss, placing her leg over his shoulder. The angle allows Matt to thrust deeper, and it makes his cock throb and twitch. Their lips stay locked, both of them too concentrated on fucking to actually kiss, but Violet keeps moaning into Matt’s mouth and that only winds him up more, and he makes sure the way he’s snapping his hips is conveying that to her, too. Violet has her fingers in his hair again, pulling on it hard, and every time she does, he feels it in his cock rather than in his scalp. Matt finds her length, jerks her off in time with his pushes.

“Matthew, please,” Violet cries out, and her voice is hoarse and even lower after such a long time of just moaning and purring and not saying anything, and that’s it, the way she says his name, the way she pleads, the way she’s come so undone for him and by him, it’s all too much and after that Matt just chases their relief without a single coherent thought crossing his mind.

The alcohol he’s consumed is numbing enough for him to last longer than he thinks he would have had he been sober, but it also makes him incapable of holding it once he feels his orgasm approach. Violet’s the first to come, marking her own stomach and Matt’s fingers and chest as she orgasms, and the tension in her muscles that Matt can feel around his length makes him follow suit just seconds later. He keeps moving still for a while, until Violet winces and shifts, pushing him back and still managing to attempt to pull him in, clearly becoming too sensitive to be touched like that.

Matt pulls out of her carefully and rolls on his back next to her, pushing his hair out of his face and letting out a heavy breath. Violet lies next to him for a while, apparently waiting for her shallow intakes of air to become deeper and steadier. When they do, she reaches over him, opting for the bedside table again, and rummages through the drawer before returning with a pack of wet wipes. Matt is genuinely not even surprised anymore. She hands him a few towels to clean up, wipes the come off herself, too. Matt gets rid of the condom, and lays himself down on his side to face her.

Violets makeup is smudged around the edges, her lipstick completely gone, probably staining Matt’s body like a semi-permanent tattoo, her wig sliding back just the tiniest bit, revealing the roots of much darker hair, the lines between her and whomever she is when she’s not her blurred gorgeously, and Matt can’t get over how lovely she is. She has her hands between her cheek and the pillow she’s resting her head on, and she studies him just as shamelessly as he does her.

“Who broke you, Matthew?” she asks after a long silence.

 _It’s Matt_ , he doodles on her chest with the tip of his finger before clearing his throat to find his voice.

“Who says I’m broken?”

She brings one of her hands from under her cheek and cups the side of his face instead. “Your brow,” she says, drawing her thumb over one of his eyebrows. “The way it’s furrowed slightly even when you’re relaxed. Your gaze,” she moves her thumb to the corner of his eye, then swipes beneath it like she’s trying to catch invisible tears. “There’s a sad tint to your gaze. Your smile,” her thumb is outlining his lips now. “It doesn’t reach your eyes. When did your smile stop reaching your eyes, Matthew?”

He circles his fingers around her wrist. It’s so tiny his index finger and thumb meet, and he can feel her pulse under his touch.

“Does it matter, Violet?”

She sucks on her lower lip, like she’s weighting his words.

“It does to me.”

Matt can feel her words more than he hears them. He can feel them crawling up his throat, bitter and suffocating like a lump, so he swallows them, and they dwell in his stomach like a pond of liquid silver, heavy and slow and dragging his insides down with it, holding him back like an anchor. He looks at the fairy lights above their heads, because looking at her face would probably be a brave thing to do, and Matt has never been any good for courage anyway. If Violet expects a reply, she doesn’t press it, and maybe she’s known all along she’s not getting one. He pulls her closer and presses her against himself, and she buries her face in his chest under his chin. He kisses the crown of her head lightly and lets her fit into his personal space elegantly and effortlessly like they’re finally where they’re were supposed to be all this time.

“Good night, Violet,” he says instead of responding.

*

Matt wakes up with a barely there headache and a body full of sore muscles, the two tangling into a reminder of last night, as if the image of Violet isn’t burnt in his brain, fresh and raw like a hot brand on livestock.

The kitchen is on the right from the living room, separated from it by a large arched doorway without doors, and that’s where Matt finally finds Violet. It’s bright and pristine, and has a ridiculous rich people kitchen isle in the middle of it, but the air is filled with the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg, and tea towels and tablecloth are red and Christmassy. He lingers in the doorway awkwardly, watching her cook something and hum to whatever melody is playing in her head, until he decides it’s a bit creepy and lets out a little cough. She turns around from the hob, a spatula in her hand, and beams at him.

The thing is, Violet is beautiful when she’s him, too, gloriously so. Her ebony hair is collected into a bun, her brows don’t arch quite as sharply, and her eyes are a little bit more hooded when there’s no illusion of a painted crease on her face, but she’s unmistakably that same pretty, fragile thing who took him home with her last night. She’s wearing an apron over what seems to be a white baggy Christmas sweater, and it is just as endearing as it is ridiculous.

“Morning, Matthew,” she says and Matt kind of wants to push her against the counter and do things to her just because of how low and raspy her voice sounds. “Wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I made pancakes. Everyone likes pancakes, right?”

“Right,” Matt says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I should probably get going, though.”

Her face falls for a second before she scolds it into an expression that radiates polite indifference.

“Right,” she echoes his words. “How silly of me. It’s Christmas, of course you’d have other obligations.”

“It’s not… I’m not…” he mumbles. “I don’t.”

She keeps her gaze fixed on him as she reaches behind her back and adjusts the heat on the hob to prevent her pancakes from burning.

“You don’t have obligations?” she repeats like she didn’t quite hear him, the indifference gone from her features.

“Not really?” Matt says, and it comes out more like a question than a statement.

“Wait, Matthew,” she says sternly. “Are you telling me you’re spending your Christmas alone?”

He looks somewhere above her to avoid her stare that’s scrutinising him like a thousand little drills, and shrugs, “You picked me up in a bar drinking alone on Christmas Eve. Did you really expect me to attend a big happy family reunion?”

“Stay with me, then, Matthew,” she says suddenly, and Matt thinks that instead of pity there’s a pleading undertone in the way her voice gets huskier. “Stay and spend your Christmas with me.”

“I’d really rather not overstay my welcome,” he says, not because he doesn’t want to stay, but because he really doesn’t want her feeling sorry for him.

“Nonsense,” she says, pointing at him with the spatula. “There’s no way I’m letting you go now. Do you have any idea how much higher the suicide rates are during the holidays, Matthew? No one should be alone on Christmas.”

He doesn’t get it then, takes it she thinks there’s a possibility he’d harm himself, almost tells her that he isn’t suicidal or depressed, that he needn’t a babysitter. It is only weeks later that he realises she could have been referring to herself instead of him.

He gets into the shower in her spacious, luxurious bathroom and keeps turning the water hotter and hotter, until it’s stinging his skin and past that, to the point where he can’t really feel it anymore. Violet slips past the slide door to join him at some point, her curls let down and framing her face wildly. Matt pins her to the wall, her front up against the cold tiles and fucks her roughly and without finesse, and for a moment the steam filling the air in the room is intertwined with his grunts and her winces.

Violet hands him a single-packed toothbrush when there’s finally too much water in their faces to keep making out and they get out of the shower.

“This relationship escalated quite quickly,” Matt jokes, unpacking the toothbrush.

“Don’t be silly, Matthew,” she rolls her eyes, but the way she smiles and  elbows his ribs is playful and amused.

They eat breakfast sat side by side on the couch, cuddled into fluffy bathrobes, their shoulders and knees brushing as one of them shifts every now and then. The pancakes have gone cold, but the coffee is hot and rich in taste, and at some point Matt abandons his plate and pushes Violet against the cushions, kissing sugar and syrup off her lips and sliding his hand under her robe to play with the ring on her nipple. Later, she falls asleep on his chest, and he lets her nap there, brushing his fingers through her curly locks absent-mindedly and listening to her heavy and steady breathing.

Matt is staring at the snowflakes twirling in the wind behind the window when Violet finally shifts a little against him. He turns to look at her, and she’s already staring at him through her lashes, and it’s the first time Matt notices the deep shade of her brown eyes.

“Merry Christmas, Matthew,” she says sleepily, closing her tiny fist around the front of his robe.

“Happy Holidays, Violet,” he wishes back and places a short soft kiss upon her lips.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything. I wasn’t sure I’d find you in time.”

It almost feels like her words are loaded with more meaning than is initially prominent, like what she is implying tells more than what she is actually saying, and Matt is not sure if he should read into it or if that would just be considered overanalysing something that isn’t asking for it.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I didn’t get you anything, either.”

“Maybe next time around, then,” she says casually and sits up. “Do you want me to..?”

She motions at her face and does a little gesture, like she’s holding a makeup brush and blending her crease. Matt takes her hand and pulls her closer so that she’s leaning over him.

“Don’t,” he says. “I like your face like this. I think you look beautiful.”

Violet straddles him in response, leaves a series of throbbing lovebites all over his torso and grinds against his cock until he has no other choice than to wrap his hand around both of their lengths and jerk them off fast and hard. She cries out his name as she comes, and hearing her moan like that makes Matt’s own orgasm that much more powerful.

She hands him a pair of sweatpants after they’ve cleaned themselves, and insists he wears a red Christmas sweater with a string of moose — _They’re reindeers, Matthew, for the love of all that is holy_ —  on it. Matt does it mainly because the way she pouts when she asks for it is the most convincing thing he’s ever seen. He’d probably agree to walk the plank voluntarily if she asked him to and pouted like that.

Matt stays on her neck while she calls some Chinese restaurant to order them takeout, going over all the purplish marks he left there the night before. Violet keeps batting him away with the place’s menu, so he decides to play it dirty and rubs her cock lightly with his index and middle fingers through her pants, and he’s only a little bit smug when she trips over her words on more than just one occasion.

He comes up with 26 different ways to kiss her while they wait for their food, and when it finally arrives, they curl up on the couch with all the containers and watch some Christmas concert on the telly. The first thing Violet does is crack open all her fortune cookies and go through the little notes without eating a single one.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how the fortune cookies are supposed to be used,” Matt tells her.

“I just really like the quotes,” she says with a shrug. “C’mon, let’s open yours, then.”

He lets her have all of his, too, and listens to her ponder whether his secret admirer is the same person who’ll change his life in six months. Matt has never seen anyone get so invested in little paper slips, and it’s completely insane, but it also makes his heart grow too big for his chest.

“You know what I used to do as a child?” she asks him when they’re done with their festive Christmas dinner and she’s sat between his legs with a glass of wine in her hands, his back  against the armrest of the couch and his arms wrapped around her.

“Had a pet snail that you kept in a jar and called your best friend?” Matt suggests. “I bet you were one of those weird kids.”

“Ha-ha,” she says dryly and slaps Matt’s wrist playfully. “I used to lie under the Christmas tree and look up at the lights for hours.”

And that’s how Matt finds himself lying on her carpeted living room floor, his head under the Christmas tree and Violet so close to him they’re basically touching. He stares into the lights, some of them just plain and warm, others twinkly and changing colours gradually, blue into purple into pink into red, then back into blue, when it hits him. He turns his head to look at Violet, and she’s cross-eyed, studying her own reflection in one of the rose gold ornaments, and Matt can’t help but notice how incredibly young she looks; she can’t be older than him, is probably, in fact, younger, and right then and there she looks vulnerable and small.

“Who broke you, Violet?” Matt whispers.

“It doesn’t matter who broke me, Matthew,” she says without taking her eyes off the ornament. “What matters is who’s going to fix me.”

Her words reverberate within him, stirring the puddle of liquid silver he thought had calmed down and solidified, and he can feel its cold, heavy weight wash over his gut in waves, each stronger than the previous one, until all his organs are dipped in it and dripping. One of the waves brings with it a revelation; Violet has been hurt, just as badly as he has if not worse, but whereas he is held back by his pain, she’s reaching for hope despite hers.

He gets up and sits on his knees beside her, hooking his fingers under the waistband of her pants.

“May I?” he makes sure and she nods wordlessly, her stare still fixed on her tree.

Matt pushes his fingers inside her slowly, twisting his wrist with every push, finding her prostate and brushing past it teasingly until she arches her back and comes on his fingers only. He licks her come off her stomach and settles back next to her, and she kisses her own taste off his sad smile.

Just moments later Violet wraps her lips around him, and the way she moves her mouth on his length makes Matt gasp and curl his toes. He takes a fistful of her hair, and Violet relaxes under his touch, lets him guide her movements submissively. Matt’s gaze goes out of focus when he reaches his peak, and as Violet swallows around him enthusiastically he thinks he sees stars, but then again, it might be the Christmas lights he’s under.

They climb into bed that night too fucked out to go for yet another round, although Matt thinks the way Violet keeps pushing her ass into his crotch while they’re spooning under the covers might change that quite quickly.

“What’s your name?” he asks in a nonchalant tone like the question hasn’t been burning inside him for hours, demanding to be let out.

“You know my name, silly,” Violet murmurs, her voice somewhere on the border of asleep and awake.

“No,” Matt says burying his face in her hair and letting the scent of her shampoo fill his nose. “What’s your other name?”

“Does it matter, Matthew?”

He hums in response, feeling the familiar weight of his liquid silver flowing up his throat like a river, and it makes him nauseous.

Violet is asleep in his arms when he realises something, and what a curious feeling it is indeed. He is a broken part of a once complete thing, and she’s a broken part of something else, and their chipped edges shouldn’t compliment each other in any way, but somehow their broken parts might fit just perfectly.

*

The morning after Christmas brings with it a heavy snowstorm, and Violet begs Matt to stay, reasons that nothing will be working today anyway and the whole city will be a mess, too taken aback by such weather.

They spend the whole morning and a big part of afternoon in bed, cuddled into soft covers and each other, and when Matt looks out of the window, it makes him feel like they’re in their personal snow globe that someone has just shaken vigorously, and he finds himself thinking that he doesn’t really want to leave.

He uses the time they have got left together to learn every inch of Violet’s body, first with his fingertips and then with his lips. He learns what her tattoos taste like, he learns the way her waist curves into her hips, he learns what it feels like to kiss every vertebra of her spine, up and down and up again. He learns how sensitive her nipples are, how sucking on them makes her cock instantly interested. He learns  how her sides aren’t really all that ticklish, but the backs of her knees are, making her squeak and kick the air when touched. He learns how she doesn’t like anybody’s hands on her calves, but adores it when someone caresses her inner thighs.

“I’m bad at staying,” he confesses apologetically, as if he owes her an explanation. Violet has their  arms outstretched in the air and she keeps lacing and unlacing her fingers with his

“It’s okay,” she says softly. “I figured as much.”

Matt spreads her out on the sheets and fucks her slowly, keeping his thrusts deep and steady. He makes it last, moving until it feels like the moment right before drop on the rollercoaster, and stopping just before they tip over, allowing them to come down just enough before building it up again. Violet’s eyes stay glued to his the whole time, and Matt can see his own reflection in them when he really concentrates. She’s a looking glass, and Matt is mesmerised by the way she reflects him, by the way she views him, and he wants to fall through her, to the other side, wants to be the man he thinks she might see in him.

They are breathless and exhilarated and ecstatic on endorphins and each other when Matt finally brings them to their limit and pushes them over it, and it takes them ages to get out of bed to shower. They don’t talk a lot, just spend the rest of their afternoon eating leftovers and kissing a lot and trying to touch as much as possible.

Violet wants to watch a movie before bed, so they watch some stupid Christmassy romcom cuddled under blankets with cups of steaming tea.

“He’s so gay,” Matt says absent-mindedly when a close-up of Jude Law’s face fills the screen.

Violet laughs, “I am pretty sure he is not.”

“Look at his jawline,” Matt argues. “No one with that bone structure can be straight.”

“He has, like, five kids. With women,” Violet informs him. “Multiple women, Matthew.”

“Jawline, Violet,” Matt says and she laughs again, punching his bicep gently.

She puts her head in his lap wen Cameron Diaz meets Law’s daughters and drifts to sleep before Kate Winslet returns home to find Rufus Sewell on her doorstep. Matt carries her to bed bridal style, litters kisses all over her face until she’s fully awake and eagerly responsive to his touch.

That night he asks her to get on her hands and knees and has her his way, takes her from behind rough and hard, slams into her in a string of shallow and fast thrusts, makes her sob and plead brokenly.

Violet calls him _Mattie_ when she comes.

He tries to hold her tightly when they collapse onto bed, but his grip keeps loosening as he feels the exhaustion dragging him into the state of unconsciousness, and he fears she’ll slip through his fingers.

“I’m bad at letting go,” she whispers when Matt is almost asleep, and he isn’t sure if she wanted him to hear.

“’S okay,” he slurs out right before drifting. “Figured as much.”

*

Violet is gone when Matt wakes up on the 27th, and so is everything else. All the fairy lights in her bedroom, the Christmas tree, the nutcracker and the elves, even the ridiculous tea towel with little snowflakes embroidered on it, all of it is gone, and her apartment is in perfect order, neat and organised and pristine. It’s like there was no Christmas decorations there in the first place, like the last three or so days didn’t happen, like the two of them never even existed outside of Matt’s imagination.

Matt paces frantic circles in her living room for what feels like hours before he’s calmed down enough to sit down, but even then he keeps bouncing his legs nervously, drumming his knees with his palms, feeling oddly on edge. He thinks he might be in the state of hyper awareness, because he swears he can hear her footsteps in the hallway long before she turns the key in the lock, and he jumps up from where he’s sitting on the couch to meet her by the door.

Violet kicks her shoes off and wiggles out of her coat before she finally lifts her gaze and spots him, freezing in her tracks as she does. Her hair is messed up by the wind and full of snow, curling even more as it melts, and her cheeks and the tip of her nose are flushed a lively shade of pink from the cold.

“What are you still doing here?” she enquires simultaneously as Matt asks, “Where have you been, Violet?”

They stare at each other in silence, as if challenging one another to speak first.

“I was in Central Park feeding ducks,” she deadpans at last.

“Why?” Mat says stupidly.

“Because it’s cold and they can’t find enough nutrition in their natural habitat?” 

And of course she’d spend her mornings in Central Park feeding little ducks because she was worried about their nutrition, and of course she’d find it silly when someone questioned that, and of course Matt had to go and trip down her and all her little quirks, headfirst straight into the deep end.

“That’s not  what I mean, Violet.”

“What do you mean, then?”

“Why did you leave without waking me up? Why did you not say goodbye?”

She blinks at him rapidly for a moment, like he’s asking something that should be clear.

“I wanted to give you a chance to leave without a fuss,” she says finally.

Matt furrows his brow and shakes his head, feeling confounded, “But you said you wouldn’t let me go.”

“And you said you’re not staying,” Violet spits out, crossing her arms on her chest.

“I never said that.”

“Well I never said I’d hold onto you.”

Matt doesn’t know what to say to that, because she’s not wrong, because they never made any promises, because they owe each other nothing and cannot be held accountable for anything, so he just stares at her, tugging on a loose thread on his sleeve.

“Please leave,” Violet says, looking like her words are physically paining her.

“No,” Matt says.

“What do you mean no?” she demands harshly.

“What’s your name?” Matt asks, ignoring her question.

“It doesn’t matter,”Violet groans. “I’m just a passer-by. A person in a bar. Someone you won’t even remember a year from now, Matt.”

Her words are like a bucket of ice-cold water, penetrating Matt’s whole body to the very bone and immobilising him.

“It’s Matthew,” he says, completely dumbfounded.

“No, it’s not. We were play-pretending, Matt. It wasn’t real. It was never meant to last longer than it did.”

“What’s your name?” Matt presses.

“It doesn’t matter,” she repeats, throwing her hands in the air.

“It does to me,” Matt says heatedly.

“Is this because you think I’m rich?” Violet says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m not that rich. It’s really, honestly not worth it.”

“What?” Matt’s voice is as full of disbelief as he is. “Of course it’s not about your money.”

“What is it about, then, Matt? Why are you so fucking adamant about it?”

“Because I’m not done falling down you or through you.”

“What?” Violet’s tone is annoyed.

“You’re a rabbit hole, or maybe you’re a looking glass, I don’t know, but I’m an Alice and I’m not done falling down you or through you,” it sounds even more absurd said out loud, but Matt has to say it nonetheless.

“What?” Violet repeats, the annoyance replaced by confusion.

“I am not done falling for you yet,” Matt confesses quietly.

“What?” Violet says for the third time, and it’s a merely audible whisper now.

“I don’t want to be an affair to remember,” he says. “I want to be the affair you’re having.”

She sucks on her lip and runs her hand through her hair before wrapping her arms around herself.

“Don’t say that, Matt.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to believe you, and I can’t afford getting broken any more than I already am.”

Matt crosses the hallway, stops in front of her and puts his hands on her biceps, squeezing them.

“Then let me fix you.”

Violet averts his eyes, looks down, her gaze darting wildly. She keeps sinking her teeth into her lower lip over and over, and Matt pulls her a little bit closer to himself, wanting to wrap his hands around her and embrace her, but he’s too afraid he’ll scare her off. Eventually Violet’s shoulders slump like she’s surrendering, and she leans into him, burying her face in the crook of his neck and nodding slightly.

“What’s your name?” he tries again.

“Jason,” she whispers.

Matt moves his hands from her biceps to her ass and lifts her, pressing her against the front door. Violet wraps her legs around him and detaches her face from his neck to meet his eyes, placing her palms on his cheeks

“Hi,” he murmurs.

“Hi, Matthew,” she purrs back, sliding her thumbs over his skin.

He reaches out and kisses her with passion and patience and hope that he’ll get to kiss her in every single way he can possibly think of.

“Ask me to stay, Violet,” he tells her.

“Stay, Mattie,” she pleads.

“Don’t let me go, Violet.”

“I won’t,” she promises.

“Then I will.”

*

A year from then she comes home with seventeen new packs of fairy lights and covers every surface in their apartment with them. A year from then she drags him to Barney’s and gets him a ridiculous stocking to match hers above their fireplace. A year from then she takes him Christmas tree shopping  three times before she finally finds a perfect one for their living room.

A year from then he asks her to marry him, and she says yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, my askbox is open and my fave pastime is kiki’ing with you! rbcch.tumblr.com


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